What was supposed to be a weekend of underground adventure in rural Columbia County turned into a claustrophobic nightmare for 26-year-old Brooklyn resident Aidan Kaminer, who says he spent six hours wedged sideways in a tight crevice deep inside Merlin's Cave near Canaan.
Kaminer says he had slid into a narrow crack where a slab of rock pinned him at the ribs and hips. For hours, he hung there sideways, unable to move, while rescuers slowly created just enough space for him to wriggle free, inch by painstaking inch.
According to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, forest rangers were called in on May 17 after Kaminer slipped into a crevice about 400 feet from the cave's entrance. The agency says rescuers, including members of the National Cave Rescue Commission, found Kaminer and his friends hypothermic and then spent roughly six hours chipping and drilling rock before he was able to exit on his own.
Kaminer told ABC7 New York he had been exploring caves during a regional cave fest when he misjudged a notoriously slick passage that cavers call the "bear trap." He recalled rescuers trying sledgehammers and chipping away at stone, and said that when he finally emerged he greeted the crowd with a casual "howdy folks" and noted that "every single person who came that day stayed the entire time." He added that the outpouring of support from friends and volunteers was emotional.
How rangers freed him
Forest Ranger Lt. John Gullen described staying with the trapped caver while other rescuers went to retrieve a hammer drill. Once the drill arrived, the team carefully bored into the rock just inches from Kaminer's head and back, and about 20 minutes of deliberate drilling opened enough space for him to slip out, the Times Union reports.
Rescuers said the cave was sitting at roughly 50 degrees Fahrenheit with nearly 100 percent humidity, conditions that made hypothermia a serious concern and shaped every decision they made during the slow, nerve-racking extraction.
What cavers should know
DEC officials have used the incident as a cautionary tale, reminding visitors to dress and pack for cold, wet cave environments and to know how to call for help if something goes wrong. The department’s weekly roundup includes the video interview with Lt. Gullen and lists 833-NYS-RANGERS as the statewide Forest Ranger hotline.
For more backcountry guidance, the agency points people to its Hike Smart NY pages and other DEC safety resources. Local coverage reports that Kaminer walked out of the cave under his own power, was given warm fluids, and was otherwise uninjured, a result that rescuers and the caver alike have described simply as a relief.
